April 2017

April 30, 2017

Today has been possibly the best days birdwatching and photography in my entire life! A bold statement but what a day I have had. It was raining badly at breakfast and it went on and on but in spite of that, we pressed on. In between the showers we still managed to see Nightingale, Red Backed shrike and a Kingfisher at the nest in a most unusual place, next to a small car park and away from water.....well you learn something because I would never have expected to see a Kingfisher with a nest hole which wasn't above water. I would normally tell you more about that but there was so much else to write about today. We went to the Truillio Planes the other side of Caceres. It was going quite well, the rain stopped and we were looking for the usual suspects after already photographing Little Owl....beautifully and of course the European Rollers that are a feature of this special place. Even photographs of them mating couldn't beat what followed. Along a track that rain for 3 miles or so it suddenly reached a choice of two directions, I chose one to the right which quickly ended in a dead end. We started to execute a three point maneuver and then we saw it ..... a massive bird that was just stood motionless in the field and not far from the fence line. It was a Cinereous vulture (Aegypius monachus) we couldn't believe ore fortune! It was, in actual fact, next to a carcass that was stripped down to just bones. Wow, what a discovery. We snapped pictures of it excitedly and then eventually whilst trying to photograph it without an annoying fence in front, it decided that we were not to be trusted and it took to the air. It was a wildlife spectacle not to be missed. Our very own find, not a bird artificially baited but a truly free and wild bird of prey feeding on a natural carcass - just wonderful and brilliant to see Europes largest bird of prey feeding and so close. Later on in the day and back close to our base camp I went to photograph the bee -eaters that we had discovered yesterday at the nest and I finished with the best ever shots of this magical species. I was very successful but that's a story that deserves it's own entry. I have wonderful photographs to post....please check back for my next post to see them and read about how I managed to get the shots. In the meantime, enjoy the vulture!

April 28, 2017

I flew over to Spain last evening with the 2 Dave's for - what is now - our annual trip to the Extramadura region for some intense birding and photography. I must mention the great flight we had on Easy Jet with two smart and bright hostesses Chelsea and Harriet who cared for us and entertained with real professionalism, whit and charm. Nice to meet you both and thank you. We picked up the hire car with no problems and the Tom Tom took us smoothly to the hotel Barajas close to the airport. Up at first light and straight to the square, just feet from the hotel, where we got off to the usual brilliant start with Serin, Spotless Starling, nesting White Storks and Monk Parrots and all in the middle of the city. The sarin for me are particularly attractive and a real feature of this great birding country. This is a female feeding on dandelion. it's cold today, most unusual but I am sure that it will soon warm up!

April 25, 2017

My last trip abroad was to the US and specifically Florida. Unfortunately I visited just a week or so before the main spring migration and birding was not as productive as you would imagine. Particularly, warblers were difficult to locate, however in the area that I stay, Palm Warblers are always easy to find and they make good photographic subjects. On one overcast and dull evening in the local park I had a magical encounter with a small flock, obviously on migration they were feeding constantly on small insects and flies. There are two sub-species of Palm Warbler, Eastern and Western and both migrate through the Florida peninsular.

April 22, 2017

I returned yesterday to try to improve on the photographs of the drinking Crossbills. I heard a nice comment recently saying that it's one thing to take lots of photographs but it's not as easy to finish up with good pictures, a very good comment if you think about it. You can decide if you think this is good photograph or in fact a good picture? For what it's worth, I love it. It is a male and yesterday I photographed not only males, but females and juveniles. This was all very, very interesting. Crossbills seemingly come in a variety of colours which makes them doubly interesting. Males, females and juveniles are all different and come in different shades of greens, yellows and reds. They are like designer finches! Another interesting fact is that their "crossed" beaks don't all cross the same way. The beak on the one above crosses left over right, in other words the top mandible crosses towards the right eye. How very interesting is this, is there a pattern to the direction of this crossing, do birds carry genes to dictate this crossing. This opens up some real scientific unknowns - or is it unknown - my question is this. Do all birds in the same family group have beaks that cross in the same way or is it purely random? Are birds genetically programed as "right" or "left" crossers. I have studied every bird that I have photographed over the last 48 hours, at least 12 different individuals of both sexes and all ages and on these, all cross left to right but if you look at the picture of a male taken previously then you can see that the beak crosses in the other direction. Fascinating!! I would love to know the answer to this question.

Here are more photographs from yesterday. For what i'ts worth, all cross to the right!

Above, a juvenile, crossing to the right!

Above, An adult male.

Above, a sub-adult male showing juvenile un-moulted feathers on the head which are yellow. When newly fledged crossbills undertake their first mount, regardless of sex they acquire greenish/yellow plumage, and it is not until next moult that males acquire redish plumage. This bird shows this really well and in addition the edges of the secondary feathers are retained and bleached to show as a wing bar.

Two different birds here, a female drinking and another male with hints of retained yellow plumage on the head but not such noticeable bleached edges to the secondaries. Got to love this species. Could be my new obsession!

Coda:

Here's a pair of Crossbills photographed in 2015, both birds are lefties!

April 20, 2017

I had the chance to photograph Common Crossbill this afternoon, a lovely and always a very interesting bird. Adult males are red and females are always yellowish, however to make things very confusing young first year males will also have some yellow and when they moult again later in the year they may have both yellow and red plumage. However and I think I have got this right - any individual with reddish or red feathers is always going to be a male. In short, females do not show any red at any age or in any state of plumage. It was interesting today to see birds of all ages and both sexes. Therefore, this must be a young(ish) male, distinctly reddish or orange.

This one next is a female (below) - or it could be an immature male? My money would be on female but you can see brown juvenile plumage underlying.

But what sex and age is this next one with obvious wing bars? I read that this is an indication bleaching and wear but who knows? Compared to the bird pictured first, it seemed strikingly different to me.

It's more red than yellow to my eyes so this would make it a male but it's probably not an adult and this is proven by the obvious juvenile plumage that you can see on the head just behind the cheek patches and wing coverts.. Like I said, Crossbills are a very interesting species of British finch and comparatively under studied.

Its been very unseasonably dry this last few weeks and standing water is a bit scarce. Crossbills are mostly, if not exclusively, seed eaters and need to drink regularly. Therefore standing water, even a muddy puddle will bring them down to drink. Very useful to the observer and photographer.